What once ensured that I sat at a table next to the teacher is now posted, Monday through Friday.

I've contributed to perhaps the best humor compilation I've ever read. Available now on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Well It WAS Called a HoJo...

“I’m starting to have feelings about this gal,” I say.

Mary leans over the railing and peers into the dark of a
heavy Florida night. She jerks her chin
toward the woman lurching through the parking lot. That
one?

We watch as the woman, a tall angular female clad in less
than a yard of black fabric, walks through the lot. The five-, maybe six-inch heels she is
wearing give her the perplexing, jerky grace of a spider one shot of vodka past sobriety. Pale and, well, lunar, somehow, she knocks sharply on
a door several down and one floor below us.

The door opens, and she slips through it.

Mary turns to me. “What
are ya thinkin’?”

“It’s
not pizzas she’s delivering.”

“A hooker?" Mary leans over the railing again, cranes her neck toward the door on the ground floor. "So suspicious,” she says. She straightens up, holds out a piece of fruit. “Meth-addict orange?”

I take it. The
woman who had approached us at the convenience store a couple blocks down had
had the hood of her jacket stuffed with them. “Mmm,”
I say. “Meth-addict oranges are the
juiciest.”

I wonder if I need to clarify - I found the story sad, but as always Pearl's writing was a joy. My reaction was to a story well told. Pearl, you brought the sadness to us, which is not a thing easily done. And, yes, the humour in there helped to balance the sadness. It was just right.

A story well told - and sad & icky (thanks Jenny O for the perfect description). Unfortunately, it seems, no matter where you stay in a tourist town (or any town really) you will find these scenarios playing out over and over again.